The digital screen connecting Arthur Sterling’s terminal in Rotterdam to the VanceTech penthouse winked out with a clean, electronic hum, leaving the command center plunged into the serene, amber glow of the setting sun. The seventy-story gold-and-glass tower was quiet, but the invisible ripples of the mass liquidation and property acquisition were already cascading through the high-frequency trading algorithms of the European financial markets.
By the time the markets opened in London and Frankfurt the next morning, Obsidian Freight would be flagged as a high-risk, distressed asset. Julian Cross would be bankrupt by noon, his legal shell companies dismantled by the very magistrates he had paid to protect him.
The text message containing the 'fortuitous gift' clause was already routed to
